Fire and Thunder

Recently, the local hockey team (the CV Firebirds) held a short story contest at the local library here. The only real stipulation was that it should be about hockey. This is my entry.

It’s…marginally about hockey.

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“I want what I want and I want it now!” Cyrus Calder, owner of the burgeoning CV hockey team, thundered from across the table at a dozen or so “desert casual” clad businessmen. They winced in unison. He loved when they winced in unison. Straightening himself, he eased back, plucked his smoldering cigar from its ashtray, and let the silence linger.

“I want something grand, mythic! If these Kraken are gonna come in and scoop our best every so often, then our mascot needs to be the best.” He puffed, each drag punctuating his words.

“Maple leaves? What’s that? Kindling, I say!  I want a—a—a dragon! Yeah! Or one of those manbearpigs! Something to strike fear in the opposition!” He bellowed, swinging his cigar — and a trail of ash — over the nearest executives.

Twelve pairs of eyes darted at one another. The office’s long glass wall opened to a lush green course and the tremendous purple mountains beyond. At once they understood what was being asked. To have a hockey team in the desert, they would need the mascot to end all mascots. They would need a legend. Suddenly, the task loomed before them, as immovable and forboding as the San Jacinto themselves.

The desert sun bled orange across the horizon as a dust-caked Jeep tore over the dry washboard flats. Inside, three executives clung white-knuckled to the roll bar, ties flapping like hippies at Burning Man.  At the wheel sat Robert Muldoon Jr., the team’s newly contracted “consultant”.

Muldoon wore a battered straw hat pulled low, a sun-faded khaki shirt, and an expression carved from sandstone. A half-smoked cigarette hung from his lip, somehow never falling despite the Jeep’s rattling. His hands were steady, the kind of hands that had set snares, fired rifles, or pulled men from wreckage.

One of the execs dared to speak. “Mr. Muldoon, are we… Are we sure this is the way?”

Muldoon spat the cigarette into the wind, eyes fixed on the horizon.
“This is the desert, son. There ain’t no ‘way.’ There’s only whether you make it back.”

The back seat went silent. A bead of sweat traced down a marketing VP’s temple.

Muldoon eased the Jeep up a rise, gears grinding. From the crest, the purple shoulders of the San Jacinto Mountains loomed like ancient sentinels. Muldoon nodded toward them.

“Out there’s where the old stories come from. Firebird, phoenix, thunderbirds… call it what you like. Folks around here don’t talk about it much. But if your boss wants a legend, gentlemen…” He shifted down, the Jeep lurching forward. “Then we’re heading straight into its nest.”

The execs looked at one another with the same wince Calder had so relished back in the boardroom. Only this time, there was no cigar smoke — just the vast, empty desert waiting to swallow them whole.

The Jeep crested a ridge and lurched to a halt. Muldoon Jr. killed the engine with a quick twist of the key.

“Why are we stopping?” one of the execs asked, adjusting his sunglasses with shaking hands.

Muldoon raised a palm and whispered. “Quiet.”

The desert went still. Even the wind seemed to hush. Then came a sound — faint at first, then growing: a rapid pat-pat-pat-pat, like dozens of tiny drums rattling across the sand.

“Listen,” Muldoon said, his eyes narrowing. “That’s not the wind.”

Over the ridge they came — long legs flashing, tails cutting through the air like rudders, beaks sharp as knives. Not one, not two, but a whole herd of roadrunners, darting in unison across the flats. They moved like water poured downhill, a living current of feathers and dust.

The executives gasped. One even dropped his briefcase into the sand.

Muldoon smirked, tilting his hat back just enough to show a glint of amusement.

The herd thundered past the Jeep, dozens of roadrunners, their heads bobbing in perfect rhythm. Sunlight flared off their feathers in streaks of bronze and violet, and for a moment, even the most cynical of the executives sat slack-jawed in awe. One reached for his phone.

 Muldoon’s hand shot out, pressing it down. His voice was low, almost reverent.
“Don’t. You’ll cheapen it.”

The herd vanished into the distance, leaving only a rolling cloud of dust and the echo of their drumming feet.

Muldoon lit another cigarette. “Gentlemen,” he said, smoke curling in the air, “welcome to Jur— I mean, the desert. Sorry. Something my dad used to say…”

One of the executives let out a fevered hush, “They move in herds… they do move in herds.”

Muldoon just smiled, setting sun glinting off his shades.

Dusk settled fast. The desert bled its colors into deep indigo, the mountains sharpening into black silhouettes against a fading sky. Muldoon Jr. guided the Jeep down into a dry arroyo where twisted mesquite roots reached like fingers from the sand.

He cut the engine again. “Out.”

Muldoon crouched low, running a calloused hand over the sand. His cigarette ember glowed briefly in the dim light as he traced something half-buried.

“Tracks,” he muttered.

One of the men squinted down. “Coyotes?”

Muldoon shook his head. “Too wide. Too deep.” He hesitated, then added softly: “Too… lethal.”

He brushed more sand away, revealing a talon print the size of a man’s hand. The word lethal seemed to hang in the air.

The execs recoiled. “What… What kind of bird is that?” whispered the finance officer, voice trembling.

Muldoon didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his head, listening.

A sound drifted over the arroyo. Not the sharp yips of coyotes. Not the shrill whistle of a hawk. This was something else — a cry that started low and mournful, then rose into a piercing trumpet that rattled their bones. If you didn’t know better, it almost sounded like a hype horn.

Muldoon rose slowly, dusting his hands. His face was stone.
“Gentlemen… that’s your Firebird.”

The cry echoed again, closer this time, and the wind carried with it a faint whiff of char — the acrid tang of something burned.

Muldoon struck a match, lit another cigarette, and spoke as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“We make camp here.”

The executives blinked at him in horror. “Camp?” one repeated, voice cracking. “You mean… outside?”

Muldoon’s smile was thin.
“Were you expecting La Quinta Inn?”

The camp came together awkwardly. Executives wrestled with tent poles like they were quarterly reports, one man tried to light a fire with a car key, and another laid out his blazer as a “sleeping bag.” Muldoon did not help. He sat on a folding stool, cigarette glowing in the dark, watching them flail with the patience of a man who’d seen too many fools try too hard.

Eventually, a small fire sputtered to life. The desert night pressed in, vast and cold, the stars so sharp they looked like pinpricks in black canvas. The men huddled near the flames, whispering in nervous tones.

That’s when they heard it: a soft cluck-cluck-cluck.

From the darkness, a roadrunner emerged, its silhouette sharp against the firelight. It tilted its head, curious, crest feathers quivering. The executives froze. For a moment, the world felt still, reverent, like they were being approached by something holy.

The bird hopped closer, its beak catching the firelight like polished obsidian. One of the men extended a trembling hand, eyes wide. “It’s… beautiful.”

Muldoon’s voice cut low across the fire. He looked ready to pounce. “Careful. They don’t take kindly to fools.”

“It’s ok, I think he likes m-”

The bird cocked its head, gave a little warbling coo — and then, with sudden violence, sneezed a wet spray all over the nearest executive’s face.

The silence shattered.

The drenched exec screamed, falling backwards into the sand, waving his arms. The others burst into panicked laughter, half hysterical, half relieved.

Muldoon didn’t flinch. He drew on his cigarette and exhaled slowly.
“Consider yourself baptized,” he muttered.

The roadrunner darted away into the night, feathers flashing bronze in the firelight, leaving the camp in equal parts awe and disgust.  

The snot covered exec could have sworn he heard the bird laughing at him.

“I hate the desert,” he said, dripping.

The laughter from the roadrunner’s sneeze hadn’t fully died when the desert fell silent again. Too silent. 

Then came the sound.

Low at first, like the groan of a horn in the deep. Then it rose, sharp and metallic, rattling through their ribcages. A cry older than the desert itself — yet to the execs’ horror, it had the same cadence as an arena hype horn.

“Gentlemen…” Muldoon rose, flicking his cigarette aside and reaching under the Jeep’s seat. He pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, polished from use. “He’s here.”

The Firebird descended like a storm. Wings broader than a pickup truck tore across the night sky, each feather tipped in flame. Its eyes glowed molten gold, and every beat of its wings churned the sand into whirling cyclones.

The executives screamed, diving under the Jeep, clutching their briefcases like talismans.

Muldoon stood his ground. Hat brim low, shotgun leveled.

The Firebird landed with a quake that rattled their teeth. Talons gouged the earth, leaving smoldering trenches. Its beak opened in a hiss that sounded like a thousand torches roaring to life.

Muldoon’s voice was steady. “Clever girl…”

He fired. The blast of the shotgun lit the desert, pellets sparking against the creature’s flaming plumage. It shrieked, not wounded but angered, and swept a wing across the ground. The fire scattered, igniting a discarded tent. 

Muldoon rolled, reloaded, and fired again, eyes blazing with the thrill of the hunt. The Firebird reared back, its wings eclipsing the stars. Sparks rained like meteors.

The standoff was biblical — man and myth, thunder and flame, courage and terror locked in the desert night.

They entered the new stadium like a Roman platoon returning victorious from war, and Muldoon Jr. was Caesar reincarnated.

Cyrus was beside himself.  He drank the visage of the firebird like it was the fountain of youth itself.

“My God” he said almost to himself, “He did it.  The crazy son of a bitch actually did it.”

The Firebird let out a long, triumphant roar that signaled he was now home.

When the CV Firebirds opened their new arena, the lights went down, the hype horn blared, and a column of flame erupted at center ice. From the smoke he appeared — wings blazing, crest feathers shimmering, eyes burning gold.

The crowd roared. Calder rose in his owner’s box, tears streaming down his face. “Fuego,” he whispered, as though naming him christened the legend.

From that night on, he was more than a mascot. He was an omen, a spectacle, a promise. At every home game, when the lights dimmed and the music swelled, Fuego swept across the rink in fire and thunder. Children screamed with joy, opponents shook with dread.

Cyrus Calder got what he wanted. The desert gave him a mascot.

And the Firebird — now Fuego — slipped into legend.

Muldoon Jr. facing off against Fuego